Effective Mathematics Leadership Grab File: Supporting the Ofsted Process
2
Making the most of the Mathematics Leadership File
This resource is designed to assist you in your role as mathematics subject leader. The file
has multiple purposes:
✓ It is a clear and comprehensive list of everything you should include in your
mathematics subject leader folder. It is important to understand that you will not
need an additional folder; once compiled, this folder will evidence your impact as
mathematics subject leader and can be grabbed for meetings with your senior
leaders, headteacher, governors or external visitors including Ofsted.
✓ Having a mathematics leadership folder will help you to feel in control of your
subject should you be invited to share a conversation about mathematics. The
documentation, data and factual information will remind you that you do indeed
know what you are doing. At a time when you could be feeling under pressure, that
can be very welcome.
✓ Compiling this folder will involve professional dialogue between yourself and your
senior leadership team. Use the mathematics evaluation questions to prompt
discussion about the school priorities, strengths and weaknesses. These
discussions will support you to evaluate the impact of current practice and locate
evidence to support your judgements. The mathematics evaluation questions could
become part of your senior leader meetings. To keep this focused you should only
tackle one unit per meeting.
✓ Section 2 of this folder includes everything a member of staff needs to know to
deliver mathematics lessons in your school. This section could also be used as an
induction booklet for new staff.
This resource will need to be populated by the relevant documents which refer to your own
school, but it points the way for you and provides samples to guide you. The file is divided
into five parts, but you may not feel you need to carry out every suggestion. Where
expectations reference the Ofsted School inspection handbook (Section 5), we will let you
know by using italic font.
Leading mathematics is an enormous field of learning, comprised of many elements. Whilst
you lead the subject, and have ultimate responsibility for standards and progress within it,
all your teaching colleagues play their part in providing good quality teaching and learning
of mathematics, and every leader and manager should also be invested in this. Engage
others to work alongside you to share and develop your vision.
Effective Mathematics Leadership Grab File: Supporting the Ofsted Process
3
Remember to keep your file updated, once it is ready to go.
Five part file:
Effective Mathematics - Leadership Grab File Introduction
Page
2
Part I - Action Planning and Key Documentation
7
Part II - Mathematics Curriculum a) Primary Mathematics Curriculum b) Teaching and Learning
24
Part III - Assessment, Attainment and Progress
43
Part IV - Leading Mathematics
53
Part V - Pupils, Parents and Governors
58
“This EIF (Education Inspection Framework) seeks to put a single, joined-up educational conversation at the heart of inspection. It is built around the connectedness of curriculum, teaching, assessment and standards within the ‘quality of education’ judgement. As a result, the inspection methodology for this judgement is structured to ensure that inspectors are able to gather evidence of how a school’s activities to deliver a high-quality education for its pupils, connect and work together to achieve the highest possible standards.” Ofsted school inspection handbook 93, p25
Part I
Effective
Mathematics -
Leadership
Grab File
Action Planning and
Key Documentation
2
Section 1.1 : Mathematics Evaluation Tool Part 1
The purpose of this document is to give a clear overview of the supporting evidence and documentation that will be needed for this
file. You may choose to RAG rate this document, your judgements must be evidenced and where there are weaknesses these have
been identified as weaknesses and there is a clear plan as to how they will be addressed.
GREEN
Fully embedded, this can be seen school wide, will be evident from all staff, pupils and parents and the
impact can be clearly evidenced.
AMBER
Systems are in place and widely implemented, however yet to be fully embedded and the impact needs
to be clearly evidenced.
RED
This is a weakness that will be addressed.
3
4
Part II
Effective
Mathematics -
Leadership
Grab File
A) Primary Mathematics
Curriculum
B) Teaching and Learning
5
“Inspectors ask about what leaders intend pupils to learn. What are the
end points they wish them to reach, what are the key concepts that they
need to understand, and in what order will they learn them?”
Ofsted School inspection handbook 94, p26
• The school’s curriculum is rooted in the solid consensus of the
school’s leaders about the knowledge and skills that pupils need in
order to take advantage of opportunities, responsibilities and
experiences of later life. In this way, it can powerfully address social
disadvantage.
• It is clear what end points the curriculum is building towards and
what pupils need to know and be able to do to reach those end
points.
• The school’s curriculum is planned and sequenced so that new
knowledge and skills build on what has been taught before and
towards its clearly defined end points
• The curriculum reflects the school’s local context by addressing
typical gaps in pupils’ knowledge and skills
Ofsted School inspection handbook 172, p41
Section 2.1 : Improvement Plan
Curriculum: A consistent message
In this section you should include everything a teacher needs to know about the vision for
teaching mathematics at your school.
Many schools are following a “mastery approach” however this word has come to mean
different things to different people and therefore it is a good idea to define what it means for
your school. Here is the guidance from the NCETM to help:
The Essence of Mathematics Teaching for Mastery (NCETM, June 2016)
• Mathematics teaching for mastery rejects the idea that a large proportion of people “just
can’t do mathematics”
6
Part III
Effective
Mathematics -
Leadership
Grab File
Assessment, Attainment and
Progress
7
Section 3.1 : Introduction
“When used effectively, assessment helps pupils to embed knowledge
and use it fluently, and assists teachers in producing clear next steps for
pupils.”
Ofsted School inspection handbook 185, p45
Assessment, Attainment and Progress
As a school, you can decide on your own assessment system, on how to record your data
and how to show progress. The important, non-negotiable requirement is to ensure that
your assessments relate directly to age-related learning as defined in the National
Curriculum. Having achieved that, you will want to show that you are plotting attainment in
mathematics and providing evidence that pupils are making progress.
“Inspectors can use work scrutiny to contribute to an evaluation of
whether the work that pupils do over time reflects the intended
curriculum. Work scrutiny will help inspectors to form a view of whether
pupils know more and can do more, and whether the knowledge and
skills they have learned are well sequenced and have developed
incrementally. Inspectors will synthesise what they find in order to
contribute to their overall assessment of the quality of education across
a subject, key stage or year group.”
Ofsted School inspection handbook 104, p27
What will Ofsted expect to see in terms of assessment?
Ofsted will expect consistency between your school’s assessment policy and its use across
the school, both in making judgements and in the application of your chosen assessment
system.
“Inspectors will ask schools to explain why they have decided to collect
whatever assessment data they collect, what they are drawing from their
data and how that informs their curriculum and teaching.”
Ofsted School inspection handbook 196, p47
8
Part IV
Effective
Mathematics -
Leadership
Grab File
Leading Mathematics
9
Section 4.1 : Introduction
This section is all about you and the impact you make as leader of mathematics.
It is important to remember the role of a subject leader is to:
• Plan actions that will have the most impact on pupil outcomes within a realistic timescale
and with efficient use of resources and value for money
• Ensure actions address:
- Inspection recommendations
- Weaknesses within mathematics
- Gaps in data
• Secure continuous improvements and sustain high levels of performance
• Complement and feed into the whole school strategic plan
• Work within the plan, implement and review cycle – monitoring is integral to your work
and evaluation should be against measurable milestones and end of year goals
• Demonstrate that they have been held to account by the headteacher and the governing
body and provide a wide range of triangulated evidence that demonstrates evidence of
impact on pupil outcomes
• Demonstrate that they work with partnerships / local schools for support and
development and engage positively with parents and keep parents informed
◼ “Leaders ensure that highly effective and meaningful engagement
takes place with staff at all levels and that issues are identified. When
issues are identified, in particular about workload, they are
consistently dealt with appropriately and quickly.”
Ofsted School Inspection Handbook: ‘Outstanding’ (1) Grade descriptor for
leadership and management 277, p74
10
Part V
Effective
Mathematics -
Leadership
Grab File
Pupils, Parents and
Governors
11
Section 5.1 : Introduction
Parents, Pupils and Governors
The concluding section will be brief. It shows how the needs and views of pupils and
parents are taken into account as a routine part of school practice. Governors will be
interested to know how the school informs and communicates with pupils and parents too.
The ideas within this section are largely optional, with the exception of the parent survey
and website compliance, so read these carefully.
The Ofsted School inspection handbook states that at the point of a section 5, Inspectors
have a statutory duty to have regard to the views of parents. These views will be gathered
through online questionnaires. When a school is notified of an inspection they will receive
online links to these questionnaires. The parent survey is largely the responsibility of the
headteacher, but leaders of mathematics will want to know parents’ views when related to
mathematics. Proactively gathering parents’ views to inform actions, for example a
homework survey to determine barriers to completing maths homework; evaluations from a
maths workshop for parents; a parental attitude to maths survey; demonstrates an
understanding of the important role parents play in their child’s education.
“Inspectors will also take into account any other evidence from parents,
including the results of any past surveys the school has carried out or
commissioned.”
Ofsted School inspection handbook 76, p22
The Ofsted School inspection handbook makes comments about pupils, parents and
governors throughout. As a leader of mathematics, you will need to keep governors
informed of key information including how your subject is taught and how the pupils are
doing.
“Governors/trustees ensure that the school has a clear vision and
strategy, that resources are managed well and that leaders are held to
account for the quality of education.”
Ofsted School inspection handbook: Good (2) Grade descriptor for leadership and
management 278, p74